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Wednesday 8 January 2014

WOYWW 240 - Wednesday 10th January 2014

Hello Friends and Fellow WOYWWers!

It's been a while since I took part in  WOYWW, so although I try and keep these post short, please forgive me for a lengthy one today and not just a desk but a whole room! WOYWW, for those who don't know, is where we get the chance to share our craft space with blogland, courtesy of Julia over at Stamping Ground...please click the link for all the deets!

 For a start with all the Christmas paraphernalia, my desk has been hardly visible for months and I've been quite ashamed of the state of my craft room:)..which is saying something as tidy craft rooms are a rarity..aren't they?

However, as my regular friends will know, for a few days over New Year when the rain was really lashing it down and the winds were howling (hence there was no going out), I decided to completely declutter my craft room. Of course, most of the time to us crafters, 'decluttering' simply means moving stuff around!

I'm lucky: several years ago Tom and I built a summer house in the garden, which was supposed to be my craft room. It worked okay for a little while, although I was still semi working in a spare room (aka craft room!) because it was just too small and over the past few years it has sadly been neglected and mostly used or storage. 

During our lovely summer last year, I did use it a few times for some art work and decided that this year I was going to use the craft room for my paper crafts and sewing and the summer house for altered art and mixed  media.


So the reason my craft room is so tidy at the moment, is because my art parts and paints are all packed up ready for a new home when the weather gets better. It will be nice to use two separate spaces.

It's weird isn't it? I got all this stuff out, packed up a good part of it and then still struggled to get the rest back in!!! There is still a lot of sorting to do - papers and card blanks but at least it's easy to work in at the moment..not that I'm expecting that to last!

Now I want to ask you a question! How do you store your stamps? I have lots and lots and at the moment they are in boxes on shelves and in the cupboard. I've tried storage folders in the past, but the boxes seem to work best for me. However, currently I store them by make of stamp - I have House Mouse boxes, Creative Expressions, Crafty Individuals, Tim Holz....but sometimes I just want a butterfly and find myself hunting through my boxes for an appropriate stamp, so would I be better having a box for nature, for flowers etc..what works for you? I'd be really interested to know!

So, do come into my craft room....



I made this bunny a few years ago and he now hangs on my craft room door

 My desk..as you can see, it's quite clear at the moment....it's nice and big and was FREE many years ago when Tom's employer moved offices and it was a 'free for all' with the furniture!  It's good that it's so big, because I can just clear aside the keyboard, replace with a mat.... and craft!
 My sort of tidy shelves! The cabinet with the cutter on top was another 'throw away' - it's one of those old video cabinets. It now doubles as a cabinet for my craft CD's and is a nice height for cutting paper and using my die cutting machines.
 Yes, you guessed it the cabinet came with the office move and is used to mostly store household files (tho,ugh some craft stuff has crept in there). The plastic drawers are storage for my inks and next to it is the built in wardrobe where I keep my die cutting machines and some of my stamps.

 This is my sewing corner...my little desk and shelves for my sewing machine, materials and (mostly)Tilda books.

..and finally right next to the coop, our little summer house (and our four 'girls')..in need of some TLC, but watch out I hope to be posting a WOYWW from there later this year....





So that's it folks! Thanks for dropping in! I'll look forward to having a look around a few of your desks later...

Love and Hugs
 Carole X

21 comments:

  1. Gosh Carole I am so impressed...your room looks nice and big and to have a desk that looks out of the window must be lovely....I'm squashed in our smallest room but perhaps thats mot a bad thing as keeping have to get rid of 'stuff' to make way for the new....love your summerhouse too

    Anne

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    1. LOL Anne, must be a better photographer than I thought, it really is a small room...not many steps from my desk to the door, :) X

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  2. Hi Carole,
    I love you pics of your craft room, it does look really quite big in the pictures. Nice and tidy too. I would be ashamed to photograph mine as it really needs a good sort out and tidying.lol.
    Fab pics of the summer house too, and the hen house next door.
    Lots of crafty love. Jenny L.

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  3. How wonderful to see the room where all your creative projects take form! I am impressed at how tidy it is too even though I know you have had a de-clutter, it is still tidy! Love your Summerhouse too, the little heart banner is very pretty. It is lovely to see the 'girls' again too, so glad they survived losing their roof.

    I keep my stamps in large ring binders on those dividers that stamps can cling too. I keep them in order of Designer, so one for Wendy Vecchi, a couple for Tim and so on and line them up where I can reach them on a shelf. I keep all the 'odd' ones where I only have one or two, in a shoe box type container, with the stamps standing up so that I can easily rifle through them. The hundreds of others that I don't use are stored and stacked in 12" x 12" plastic boxes and labelled, for example, Christmas, Boys, etc. I really must sort through them..... thanks for the reminder! Hugs, Anne xx

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  4. Hi Carole
    It is shocking how quickly we can outgrow a space with all our crafting products. I am struggling to find some extra space so things are being moved from one area to another until I find something that works
    Your little summer house looks so pretty and I hope it makes a wonderful craft room for you. I hope that it is a space that you will be able to use all year round because I think you will get so much inspiration working in there. Enjoy
    Have a great WOYWW today and enjoy the rest of your week
    Hugs Ria #6

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  5. Wow what a tidy room, but then you have been tidying. And how lovely to have a summerhouse for different craft.
    As for stamp storage, clear ones I have in a folder in Martha Stewart sectioned multipunched pockets, arranged in theme, (ish) and the wooden ones are in a drawer and a box, will all be in boexes when I have purchased a couple more. However, I have a stamped image of all the wooden ones in the folder with the clear stamps so I can see what I have got before I go rummaging in the boxes. Still a work in progress at present as I had soem new ones for Christmas.
    Have fun sorting and then creating some beautiful stuff.
    Blessings
    Chris #22

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  6. Thanks for the tour around your room. So big but I totally know how fast we can "outgrow" our spaces. Love your little house, too! Happy WOYWW!
    Carol N #67

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  7. Hi Carole.
    Thanks for the tour, just wish I had that much space, we moved to a very small bungalow a few year ago so my craft space is now very restricted, I used to have my own room which I miss so much. Never mind I still manage. Love your outdoor craft room.
    Lydia
    X

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  8. You are so lucky to have 2 rooms, I have moved a section out to my dining room table for card making and am using my studio for mixed media..is this a new trend ya think? lol waving hi from the hills of North Carolina ♥

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  9. Carole, I love your spaces - how lucky to have 2 to use. Thanks for swinging by my blog earlier and for your lovely comments and for becoming a follower..I organised all my clear stamps last year - here's a link to how I did it, there has been one change, underneath all the stamp sets I have written the name of it and the manufacturer's name..so that I don't forget and can credit people when using them. http://hamnmuledesigns.blogspot.com/2013/09/woyww-22410-days-to-go.html Message me if you have more questions. Cx #25

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    1. Thank you! I will check this out! Carole Z X

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  10. Lovely room you have there, I would love to come for a play date. The summer house is gorgeous!!! I want one!
    Happy WOYWW!
    Tertia #50

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  11. Carole!! wow!! or as they say here in the midwestern part of the US:

    "Holy Buckets!!"

    What a wonderful pleasure it is to see your crafting space!! It is great to think of you there making all of your beautiful cards : ) Your summer house is truly delightful!! : )

    I will have to post on my blog the way in which I store all my stamps. I have a neat idea for you that - no matter how you actually store your stamps - will help you locate them quickly and easily. I promise to try to do that one day this week. : )

    Thank you again for sharing!!

    Patti

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  12. Wow, you have an awesome craft room and I can see why you can be creative there. Love the welcome on the door lol. And of course I adore your four girls, I bet you always have eggs for breakfast.
    Hugs
    Desíre
    {Doing Life – my personal blog}

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  13. lovely work Carole!!
    third comment its driving me nuts - not sure why?!!
    - and I suggest you catalogue your stamps and write in pencil where they are beside it then no problem did it on my blog last year.. store in drawers and folder, Shaz in oz.x

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  14. Fabulous craft room! It looks pretty organised to me. (I have a room which I can barely even get in to!) I have my stamps (lots!) organised in various ways, some in A4 folders (because they are older and I originally used "on/off" glue with them, before I discovered EZ mount) which I am very slowly cleaning up and mounting. I also have a lot of semi see through plastic boxes, (cheap shop) which are about A4 size and not very deep, only about 3" and these are in categories like flowers, people, animals, backgrounds and so on. I could go on a bit more :) ... let me know if you want to hear more :)
    Thanks for stopping by and have a good week,
    RosA # 29

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  15. Morning Carole

    You look super organised!!

    Always lovely to see where people craft .. .. then you can imagine them working away.

    Love your little summer house too!

    My craft pod is the smallest bedroom and I have far too much clutter in there .. .. but I NEED it all .. .. of course LOL!!!

    Have a lovely day and great weekend.

    Love Jules xx

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  16. You are a very lucky lady to have 2 crafting areas but I can't complain...my hubby built me a lovely big craft room a little while ago.
    Here is a link to a couple of posts from when it was being built if you would like to have a look...needless to say it's not that tidy anymore and I have things on the walls now. Vikki #108
    http://vikkisstampingcreations.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/my-new-craft-room-part-1.html
    http://vikkisstampingcreations.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/my-new-craft-room-part-2.html

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  17. You are a very lucky lady to have 2 crafting areas but I can't complain...my hubby built me a lovely big craft room a little while ago.
    Here is a link to a couple of posts from when it was being built if you would like to have a look...needless to say it's not that tidy anymore and I have things on the walls now. Vikki #108
    http://vikkisstampingcreations.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/my-new-craft-room-part-1.html
    http://vikkisstampingcreations.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/my-new-craft-room-part-2.html

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  18. Good to see you at WOYWW, Carole, and good job with a thorough sort! I enjoyed all the pictures of all your storage and nooks and crannies and the little summer house and chickens! Your summer house reminds me of my Playhouse!

    As for stamp storage, I gave up years ago keeping them by manufacturer because I NEVER could find the one I wanted or remember what I had, so I have always sorted mine by type: all the birthdays together, all the thank yous, all the flowers, etc. I do the same thing by color family of my card and pens and inks. I love it and have never regretted doing it that way. The frustration of having to search for something made me lose my mojo and by the time I found it, I didn't even care any more, LOL!

    You can get the details on my blog at the top tab called "Playhouse/organization." Until I started blogging a couple of years ago, I didn't care who the manufacturer was. Now that I blog, on new clear stamps that I divide up, I try to include a scrap with the manufacturer and name. I hope you enjoy checking it out, even if you don't use the same system. I'll stop back and see what you decided. In the meantime, Happy Belated WOYWW! Enjoy your day! Darnell #12

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  19. http://stationerystyles.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-1986-card-that-inspired-my-love-for.html Finally got my post up Carole ; ) Have a look!!

    (((Hugs)))
    Patti

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